RP Impulse



"Drat." The curse was mild, compared to the one that Mask had just unleashed, but Lucille wasn't prone to swearing - not any more. She'd sworn with the best of the boys, once upon a time, when she'd been a fighter pilot with the British air force - and then one of the Germans had shot her down, and the crash had been... bad. Mask had been the one to find her, after she'd gone down. She was probably alive thanks to them. She wondered, sometimes, whether they regretted that, but she didn't ask.

She might have survived, but she'd lost the arm, and that had meant the end of piloting. It had been a relief to a great number of people - women weren't supposed to be pilots, after all. Lucille hadn't agreed, but it was hardly like she could fly without the arm, so she'd gone and done what everyone thought she should have done in the first place and signed on as a nurse.

Things were desperate enough that she hadn't needed to be particularly skilled at it so much as just needing not to be squeamish. Mask had followed her around like a mascot, and Lucille tried not to hear what people said about them. Most people seemed to think they were a pet, about as smart as a retriever. Lucille figured that if Mask wanted people to know otherwise, they could say something, but perhaps it was easier to pretend not to be a human than to try to convince everyone that you were one.

After a while, people had gotten used to it, and a pair of extra hands was always welcome, especially since Lucille had only half that herself. If Mask could tie knots and carry things, well, it hardly mattered. A fair number of the people that the two of them had ministered to probably though they were a hallucination anyway - the ones that were conscious, anyway. The unlucky ones.

The war had been rough. Lucille wondered why it was, then, that now that it was over all she wanted to do was fight. Maybe it was the time spent in ministrations. Maybe all that healing people just made her pent up and frustrated. She knew she was meant to be a killer - she'd just had to put that aside, for a while.

But the war was over now, and it was time to be who she was supposed to be once more. That was why they were here, on the streets, watching the cars go by. If Mask said that N was in one of them, then Lucille believed them. They usually had good instincts about that sort of thing. Well, they all did, to a degree, but Mask's were better than most.

"Come on. Let's find someone to give us a ride." She didn't like driving. It was hard to manage the gear shift and the steering wheel with only one hand, at least at any good speed. For little things, she managed, but chasing down N wasn't going to be a little thing. Fortunately, Lucille had learned that there were a great number of young men far from home who were happy to help a nurse, even one with one arm and an odd companion.

"We can probably catch up. No doubt someone will think the chase is fun."

Lucille would too, for that matter. The chase was almost as good as the kill.

Almost.

 
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Niklaus couldn’t help but turn back to look over his shoulder, over a decade of paranoia searing the habit into his mind. Of course, just because he was paranoid did not mean that someone wasn’t after him. As his eyes hastily scanned the street, they were sharply jerked back to a pair of figures that he had initially skimmed over. They were nondescript, both bundled up like so many other pedestrians.

And yet, when he looked at them, Niklaus felt the chains in his chest tug a little more taut. They’d found him. Jesus if he had hesitated a few minutes longer he could have run into them on the street. There would have been no escaping them, then. L was usually rather athletic, even with her missing arm, but trying to run from M would only prolong his life so far as they enjoyed the hunt.

Although that wasn’t saying much. The longest he’d seen them play catch and release was a month. He’d been worn ragged by then, jumping at shadows, death by a thousand cuts preferable to swallowing a bullet only to maintain what little was left of his dignity at the end.

Niklaus turned back to face the front, fishing a handkerchief out of his pocket to dab at the sudden sheen of cold sweat that had broken out on his forehead. He did not order his driver to speed up, which would have given the whole game away. He wasn’t even sure if M could catch a speeding car, but he didn’t want to risk it. His gloves creaked as his grip tightened on his cane, consciousness spreading to the other two vehicles as his mind touched the sheafs of paper placed within the backseats of the other two.

With a rustle the papers shifted and folded, stacking themselves into a humanoid shape. Each was gloveless and lacked a cane, fine details abandoned in favor of the broad strokes of ‘vaguely Niklaussian man in the back seat’. Both uttered a sentence in German, directions that he had scrawled on the top page. The drivers, presumably startled by their boss suddenly appearing in the back seat, obeyed without hesitation. Two of the cars pulled off, each taking different routes to the airport.

Niklaus let out a breath, continuing to mop away sweat that he chose to believe was due to the increasing distance between himself and the faint slivers of consciousness he had embedded within the two Doppelgänger. He fought the urge to look behind him, to see whom they would follow. He simply had to trust in his plans. He’d been laying them for centuries, surely he hadn’t gotten too predictable in his old age. But even so, the weight of the hunt hung heavy in his chest, and Niklaus bit back an order for his driver to speed up.

“Come on you two,” he muttered. “Let’s see how well you remember me.”

 
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Mask wrinkled their nose behind their scarf, grimacing at the thought of climbing into one of the mechanical death traps that L and N were so fond of. Cars were loud and smelly and confining, and they failed to see the appeal of moving a little faster when all that movement was restricted to roads, with all the rules and rigid structure inherent. They would tolerate vehicles when they had to, but this was not one of those times.

“Catch your ride, I’ll meet you there.” Their goggle-covered gaze left the car only briefly when they said this, turning to Lucille and dipping in a brief nod before they split from her side, lengthening their stride until they far outpaced her. Their boots slowed them, so they kicked them off, causing a small commotion when someone behind them immediately tripped over the discarded footwear. They kept moving, ignoring the unrest they were causing. The stirring of ants meant little to them.

The gloves were the next to go, followed swiftly by the floppy hat, goggles, and scarf. The disguise had served well enough to get them into the city, but now that it had turned into a hindrance they were more than happy to shed it, leaving a haphazard trail of accessories in their wake. The ants started to scatter when they came near, shocked cries accompanied by stumbling feet, and it made following the car significantly easier. They didn’t bother hiding their amusement. Ants were so easy to scare.

Struggling out of the shapeless trenchcoat at last, they bundled it up between their front paws, and as they ran kept their ears trained on the sharp patter of footsteps along a perpendicular street. When a patrolman hurried around the corner ahead of them, they tossed the bundle at him with glee, then rushed forward in a whirl of gray-white fur and sharpened claws to dispatch both him and his partner while he struggled with the fabric. It was over as soon as it began. They kept moving, racing to catch up to the car with Niklaus’s scent before it could get too far away.

He wasn’t shaking them that easily.

 
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There was the car, just like Mask had promised it would be. It only took a moment for Lucille to hail one of the young soldiers for a ride. He flirted, briefly, until the intensity in her gaze quelled any thoughts about where that might go - that, and her insistence on following N's vehicle. What the soldier was making of it... well, she could only guess. He probably figured it was someone who'd wronged her, or wronged one of the other girls. She let the driver give her his name, and offered an empty promise to look for him later. She wouldn't find him - she'd already forgotten what the name was.

Some Hunter she was.

For a moment, only a moment, she almost smiled - an expression that had been lost for a while, hidden deep down somewhere underneath the blood and the gore and the interminable unending war. She'd seen plenty of smiles, most of them on dead men. It didn't make her inclined to echo the expression.

Mask had opted not to hop in, loping along at their own easy pace. Lucille watched them in the rearview mirror, baffling everyone they encountered, but it was more or less harmless. She thought, not for the first time, that Mask was always happier as the Hunter or the Prey. Arbiter didn't do them any justice, as they were - but they'd stayed by her side for now, and for... when she'd needed them.

Two cars changed direction, suddenly, and Lucille sat forward a little bit in the seat, biting her lip and wondering which - but of course, Mask was right behind them, and they weren't fooled for an instant.

"Just follow them."

"Who?"

"The... the creature. Just follow... it." Mask preferred they but people didn't understand. Lucille wondered if they'd tried to explain this cycle, but... no, perhaps not. It wasn't a good cycle to be different, especially not in Europe. You never knew if you could trust someone or not.

Of course, that was how they all lived, wasn't it? One life after another, never daring to trust. Perhaps Mask was just baiting her, luring her into a trap. If that was the case... well, if that was the case, Lucille would deal with it when she could. She slipped a hand inside her handbag, something that had been nice once, before the war. She wondered who it had belonged to, and what they'd kept in it.

Probably not a pistol. She slipped it out and made sure it was loaded, then carefully rolled down the window, much to the objection of her driver - but Lucille knew how to look at people to make them feel hunted. He backed down, like she'd known he would.

"Just keep following."

 
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Patience was usually his strong suit. As the least physically capable of them, Niklaus had learned other ways to keep somewhat in the same league as the others. Though it had been centuries since he’d learned to wield paper as a weapon, the more complicated applications still eluded him. As a result, he had to be craftier than the others, laying plans that took days or months to come to fruition.

Unfortunately it was rather hard to lean on one’s patience when they were being hunted by two of the most effective killers he’d ever known. He hadn’t been in a situation this bad since the turn of the 17th century, and the thought of that horrid hunt sent enough of a shudder up Niklaus’s spine that he finally relented and glanced over his shoulder.

His stomach plummeted at the sight. A gray and white figure was rapidly approaching, blatantly chasing after his car. They looked vaguely human, save for the fur and the fact that they were on all fours. There you are, M. Now where is she? Pedestrians and vehicles alike swerved to avoid them, all except for one, which swerved to avoid the stragglers but did its best to keep pace. Hello, L.

But how? The illusions should have been good enough to fool most people at a distance, especially those who had yet to see him this cycle. So how did they-?

Niklaus sniffed, the answer suddenly filling his nostrils. Of course. He’d just had to wear this damnable cologne. M could probably smell it for a half-mile, probably didn’t even need to chase him this aggressively and was just doing it for the sheer thrill. And L was just following them, no doubt. Well then, time to make this interesting.

Nicklaus flipped open his briefcase, quickly removing several sheets of paper and a bottle of cologne he kept as a backup. It was rather expensive, but he'd have no chance to use it if he died here. The scent filled the car, tingling his nostrils as he doused the pages, almost emptying the bottle in order to fully saturate them. He turned in his seat, staring out the rear as he rolled down the window, the brisk Berlin air graciously weakening the overpowering scent.

“Step on it.” Niklaus ordered the driver before dragging his finger over the paper and muttering something in a language long-dead. He sword he could feel the pages shudder beneath his fingertips as he tossed them out the window, already being left behind as the driver followed his orders. The pages fluttered in the air for a moment, lazily drifting in the breeze, before his magic took hold and they folded themselves into airplanes, a veritable armada of them.

With another word, they split. Some launched themselves at L, smacking against the wind shield in great white sheets whose only purpose was obfuscation. Niklaus would have felt slightly bad about trying to run her off the road if it wasn't his head she was after. The lion's share (pun not intended) flew towards M. With them, the purpose was twofold. Visual obfuscation, naturally, as his car sped away, but also disabling one of their greatest tracking strengths: their nose. He hoped the sheer volume of cologne would be enough to put M's nose out of commission long enough for him to escape.

As the planes flew towards their targets, Niklaus turned back in his seat, rolling up the window and snapping the briefcase shut. He glanced at the rearview mirror, catching the eyes of the driver who hurriedly reverted his gaze back to the road. Niklaus tapped his fingers against the briefcase, eyes locked firmly ahead, breath shallow, a tightness in his chest that should have relaxed once the airstrip came into view, but instead only tightened further.

Was this it? Would he escape, forced to look over his shoulder for years, decades if he was lucky, until they showed up once more? Or would it all end here, with someone’s hands bloodied and at least one more corpse left to the German meatgrinder? Niklaus wasn’t sure, and was growing less so by the minute.

 
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